Omni Plastics deal gives Celanese more compounding capacity

Celanese Corp.'s plan to buy Omni Plastics LLC is its latest move to expand in plastics compounding.

In the past few years, the Dallas-based company has been investing heavily in compounding with internal projects and through acquisition in the United States and offshore.

Omni Plastics, founded in 1999, runs single- and twin-screw compounding lines in Evansville, Ind., in a facility with nearly 300,000 square feet of floor space.

Omni Plastics employs about 100 in the United States and Mexico. If offers about 1,000 different products.

“Engineered thermoplastics continue to be a material of choice in automotive, electrical and electronics, consumer goods and industrial markets and Omni Plastics strengthens Celanese's presence in these strategic areas as well as brings expanded presence in office furniture, filtration, lawn/garden, and other specialty materials applications,” noted Celanese CEO Scott Sutton in a Dec. 18 news release.

Celanese expects to finalize the Omni Plastics deal in the first quarter of 2018. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Celanese will integrate the Omni business with its engineered materials business. It will acquire the following brands of engineering polymers:

• OmniLon nylon formulations with internal lubrication additives.

• OmniPro polypropylene compounds.

• OmniCarb polycarbonate formulations, largely used in automotive and electronics.

• OmniTech family of custom-developed materials based on various resins, including PBT and ABS.

Omni Plastics materials variously have Underwriters Laboratories listing and compliance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and NSF International for water and food safety. Some materials are qualified by automotive and electrical/electronic OEMs.

The acquisition includes Omni's subsidiaries, including Mexican distributor Resinal de Mexico.

Resinal is based in Mexico City and distributes engineering resins and compounds with a focus on the auto industry. The firm has warehouses in Mexico City, Querétaro, Monterrey and Laredo.

Celanese, billed as the world's largest acetal resin producer, has been growing through acquisition and greenfield expansion in recent years.

Celanese added compounding capacity in 2015 at its Florence, Ky., facility, where it runs a research and development center. Acetal, polybutylene terephthalate and polyphenylene sulfide resins are key materials affected by the expansion. The site provides compounds for Celanese worldwide.

On the acquisition trail, in early 2017 Celanese acquired the nylon compounding business of Nilit Ltd. The deal includes compounding facilities in Italy, Germany and Suzhou, China.

In late 2016, Celanese made a big push in compounding with the acquisition of So.F.Ter Group of Forli, Italy. The deal included compounding units in Italy, Tennessee and Mexico with annual production capacity exceeding 300 million pounds. The deal added nylon to Celanese's portfolio and gave it a range of thermoplastic elastomers that led to new soft-touch markets such as footwear.

The So.F.Ter purchase followed Celanese's announcement in early 2016 that it was entering the market for nylon, a key engineering resin missing from its portfolio. At the time Celanese said it had a range of specialty compounding techniques it could bring to the table for nylon. These technologies included metal-effects, melt-impregnation for long-fiber reinforced materials, and expertise in compounding and blending its traditional resins such as PPS and liquid crystal polymer with nylon.

By 2016 Celanese had already begun compounding nylon with conductive plastics after its 2014 purchase of Cool Polymers Inc. In late 2014 It bought most of the assets of conductive polymers producer Cool Polymers, including compounding capacity in North Kingstown, R.I. The deal put Celanese in the growing market for polymers used in LED lighting.

In 2014, Celanese introduced PPS compounding at its Nanjing, China, facility. The site already was compounding PBT, liquid crystal polymers and acetal.

Elsewhere, Celanese opened a technology center in Querétaro, Mexico, in 2015. The operation is poised to take advantage of Mexico's rise as an automotive manufacturing region.

Celanese will boost its profile in Mexico through the acquisition of Omni Plastics subsidiary Resinal de Mexico, a distributor in Mexico City with warehousing in Querétaro, Monterrey and Laredo.

Omni Plastics' Evansville location is near compounding operations of rival A. Schulman Inc.

Schulman consolidated compounding in Evansville in late 2015 when it closed three facilities it recently acquired as part of Citadel Plastics. Prior to that, Schulman had seven compounding facilities in Evansville.